The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has opposed any move to permit tourism or any other human activity in core area of sanctuaries and tiger reserves in Madhya Pradesh, citing these areas should be kept 'inviolate' for tiger conservation.
Lending support to petitioner Ajay Dubey's PIL seeking ban on tourism in core areas of state's national parks and sanctuaries, the NTCA filed its reply before the Supreme Court on Friday.
"The word 'inviolate' means without any disturbance by human beings. This is essential for conservation of tigers. There is also an ecological necessity to conserve critical corridor connectivity for saving tigers," the conservation authority said.
The core or critical tiger habitat areas of national parks and sanctuaries, where it has been established, on the basis scientific and objective criteria that such areas are required to be kept inviolate for the purpose of tiger conservation, without affecting the rights of the Scheduled Tribes or such other forest dwellers, and notified as such by the state government in consultation with an expert committee constituted for the purpose, said NTCA.
According to petitioner Ajay Dubey, who is the secretary of Bhopal-based environment protection NGO Prayatna, the Madhya Pradesh (MP) government allowed tourism in core areas of state's national parks and sanctuaries, which adversely affected the wildlife, especially tigers.
The apex court, on July 29, had granted three weeks' time to respondents NTCA and MP government to file their replies and posted the matter for next hearing on November 3. The state government is yet to file its reply.
The bench of Justice Dalvir Bharti and Justice Deepak Mishra sought the respondents to reply on three key issues, to what extent tourism is being carried out in core area of Madhya Pradesh; what is the position of tourism in other tiger reserves in the country; why tourism is not carried out in the buffer zones of the tiger reserves.
Earlier, the petitioner had filed a PIL before the principal bench of Madhya Pradesh high court at Jabalpur seeking to ban all kinds of commercial tourism, hoteliering and other human activities in the core and critical areas as notified in the tiger reserves of Madhya Pradesh.
The high court, however, disagreed with the petitioner and rejected his petition forcing him to move a special leave petition (SLP) in the apex court.
According to Dubey, he was forced to file the litigation as Madhya Pradesh is home to two-thirds of the country's tiger population. Besides this, in the past few years with government succumbing to commercial interests, the state's tiger population had registered a sudden decline.
DNA